Don't Cry For Me
by MellowDragon
Summary: If there was one thing Vegeta couldn't stand, it was tears. They showed weakness...but sometimes they are just a part of life.


A/N: Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ.

This is for my first full year on (yay!). I tried to make them in character…but they may have went Ooc for a bit…

The sun shone down upon the people below. It was much too bright, as if it was trying to boost their spirits, but it was failing. The group watched as the coffin was lifted and settled into the ground, hiding from them not only a friend, but a father, grandfather and lover. The sounds of a woman's pained cry seemed to echo throughout the graveyard, while her two kids tried to comfort her, but were brought to tears themselves. Sure he had never been a very sociable man, never the one to want to spend time with others and stubbornly told others he was fine alone. But deep down, he enjoyed the company of the few people he had begun to accept as friends, although he would never admit that aloud.

No one had suspected something was wrong with him, he still seemed like normal Vegeta, the most stubbornly aggravating asshole of all time. No one had suspected the last holiday would have been just that for the Saiyan prince, his last. He was never one to complain, always putting on a façade if he was in pain, saying he was a saiyan and could take a little pain.

No one suspected how much pain he must have endured the last few months of his life. Everyone was shocked when they found out he had died during the night, though none grieved as much as Bulma. If she had known the fight they had the evening before would have been her parting words to her husband, she would have never said any of the things she did. Hell if she had known that he was going to die that night, she would have forced him to go to the hospital so they could have tried to save him…though she knew that it was probably too late.

Apparently all those years in space and working for Frieza came back to bite him in the ass after all those Frieza free years. The radiation he had come in contact with had given the saiyan cancer, but because of his saiyan immune system, it had taken nearly forty years to develop fully.

He knew there was something wrong, but refused to seek any sort of medical attention, especially from this "backwater planet's pathetic medicinal facilities."

In the end, his stubbornness cost him greatly, his life.

Trunks and Bulla had moved out the house many years before and never visited often, only really showing up during the holidays, but neither of them suspected that even before the next holiday (which was only a few weeks after the last one), the group would be one person short.

Goku had noticed a different in the saiyan prince, but didn't think much of it at the time, but thinking back, he realized that, had he said something, Vegeta may still be with them today.

Gohan tried to hold back his emotions, remembering how Vegeta always said emotions were for the weak and they show weaknesses that enemies could use to their advantage…but he figured that he wasn't around any enemies, and found it harder to bottle up his emotions, thinking back to the day Vegeta had arrived on earth and tried to kill him and his friends, but through the years the saiyan prince had become more mellow and caring, especially towards his family. He never knew how painful losing Vegeta would have been.

No one understood how much Bulma was hurting. She always figured she would have died years before Vegeta, and she kept wishing she would wake up and find Vegeta snoring slightly next to her, his arm wrapped gently around her waist, holding her possessively to his chest…but with each passing minute, the chances of all this being a dream dwindled. As soon as she saw the coffin which contained her husband slip into the ground and out of her sight, the reality of this situation hit her hard and heavy.

He was gone forever.

Her Saiyan prince…

Those three years before the androids showed up seemed so long ago. The days when he called her "servant woman" and her fear for him was still tangible, but fading. That horrid pink shirt she made him wear and when he first saw it, he had thrown a fit, but she told him that he could either wear it or go around naked. She was almost worried when the door opened and she turned around that he would be stark naked, but was pleased to see him wearing the shirt that labeled him as a "Badman." The nights they spent between the sheets, her waiting for him to finish his training, her heart pounding as she heard the doorknob turn to reveal him, freshly showered with that lustful glint in his eyes, only to wake the next day sore between her legs and Vegeta no where in sight.

After Cell was killed she was beyond glad that he decided to stay with her and Trunks and was amazed at the transformation he went through. Okay…well the others never noticed anything different, but he was. She could tell and that was all that mattered.

He was her other half, and she was his. They completed each other wonderfully and now she felt as if she was missing half her soul…she felt so…painfully empty.

To make matters worse, they ended up parting on bad terms. They had gotten into a fight, About What? She couldn't even remember anymore, but she had said some horrible things that she didn't mean…was he still angry with her?

Would he forgive her?

She didn't see why he would for the things she had said to him were uncalled for…but then again…he was always a mystery to her. Even after forty years of knowing Vegeta, she had never quite figured him out.

For one thing…she thought he trusted her…turned out she was wrong.

When she had found him leaning against a tree in the pouring rain, she had called to him from the door and when she received no response, she grabbed her coat and wrapped it tightly around her small body and approached him, calling his name to get his attention. As she drew nearer, she noticed his eyes were open and unblinking…she started to panic. She rushed over to him and shook his shoulders, screaming out his name, the rain mixing with the tears running down her face. She grabbed his hand, feeling for any sort of pulse…but finding nothing…She buried her face into his chest, her sobs wracking her body as she mourned the passing of her husband…her other half.

After calling Trunks to come help her, with what he wasn't sure but he knew it was urgent and he rushed to Capsule corp, finding his mother and father under a tree he used to play under when he was little. He was  
surprised to see them in the pouring rain and suddenly noticed he couldn't sense his father's ki. He hurried over and Bulma looked up to her eldest child, her eyes red and puffy from crying.

"He's gone…"

Those words resonated within his head for the next few minutes.

How could his father be dead? He was the strongest man on earth (he didn't feel like Goku was stronger since Vegeta had stayed with his family while Goku left to train some strange boy)…how could he possibly be dead? Trunks eventually gathered his wits and thanked the rain for covering the tears that had begun to fall. He grasped the body of the man who he idolized his entire life, lifting Vegeta from the cold ground into his arms and bringing him inside and setting him where his mother specified him.

He knew he had to call Bulla and tell her father was dead…but he needed to prepare himself slightly…for Bulla had been a huge daddy's girl her entire life and Vegeta had always seemed to spoil the little Bulma look alike.

Bulla dropped the phone, startling her children and husband. Their questions fell on deaf ears.

"…Father died last night…"

She couldn't believe it…she didn't want to believe it. Her daddy was dead? But they had just seen him two weeks ago and he seemed normal…but the more she thought about it the more she realized there had been something wrong with him. He was walking more stiffly than normal as if he was in pain, wincing whenever Goku slapped him on his back good-naturedly. She couldn't believe that she hadn't noticed until then that something had been truly wrong with her daddy…and now it was too late…

She rushed out of the house, leaving her kids, Vegeta's grandkids, with her husband, refusing to answer any and all of their questions. She only had one thing on her mind…, which was, she needed to see her father for herself…

Seeing her father, who had once been the most proud people that ever lived, lying on the ground where she had once sat across from him, proud that she managed to convince him to play dollies with her, giggling as he had to play Barbie while she got Ken…his girly voice could use some work, but she was the happiest girl on earth…no the universe at that point and she wasn't going to complain. Her father's skin didn't have its normal swarthy appearance, but rather it had a sort of ghostly hue to it, which seemed very unnatural…what happened to his normally tanned skin? He was paler than her mother…and that scared her.

Bulla dropped to her knees gently and brushed her hand across Vegeta's cheek, shuddering from the cold feeling of his flesh…he had always been really warm. She always enjoyed playing out in the snow and when she came in snuggling up to her father to warm up. She knew her father didn't care much for snuggling, but she knew he loved her and when she said she was freezing, he relented.

The three of them, Bulma, Bulla and Trunks, stood there for quite a while, each having their own thoughts about the stubborn saiyan prince, but all of them missing him dearly.

They all wondered what could have taken Vegeta's life and after they got a mortician to look at him they were all stunned to find out he had cancer.

They figured that the mortician had mixed him up with someone else, but he was positive he was right.

None of them could believe he had been living with cancer this entire time…and none of them noticed.

Bulma had noticed a change in his behavior, but she figured it was just old age…but how wrong had she been.

A few days later, they all stood together once again, at his funeral, sobbing, still not wanting to believe he was truly gone. The others gathered to send off the saiyan prince, each murmuring their goodbyes, each of them losing a friend of some sort. Everyone seemed to be mourning, for the silence was almost unbearable. The only thing that seemed to be celebrating was the damn sun. The sun seemed to be mocking them.

Vegeta always preferred the darkness, for the most part of his life that was all he saw, both figuratively and literally. The small rooms in Frieza's ship that Frieza refused to light for the saiyans and the darkness of death and the tyrant himself was suffocating at times…but when Bulma came along, she seemed to be the light in his practically permanently dark life. Only then did he begin to enjoy the light.

They finished burying the prince's coffin and people began to trickle away, giving their hope to the widowed woman and her two children who barely seemed to notice them. Only when the sun retreated below the horizon and the moon, which Bulma noticed was full tonight, rose high into the sky, did they three of them part their own ways.

Bulma returned home to a house, which was much too large for one person, the silence and loneliness seemed to constrict upon her. She made her way up to their…her room. She changed into her pajamas and when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror, she laughed lightly, tears threatening to escape their prison.

"He always told me these pajamas make me look fat…" She muttered, remembering how whenever she wore this set of pajamas he said they made her look fat, she would always yell at him saying they did not, for they made her look sexy, to which he just laughed, rolled over and said, 'whatever.' How come it isn't until after he died, that she noticed he was right…her butt and mid section did look larger than she actually was. She crawled into bed, inhaling Vegeta's scent on his pillow, she inhaled deeply, realizing that soon his scent would fade out. The tears that had been trying to escape did. She cried into his pillow, wishing that he was right here next to her.

She wished that he would have trusted her enough to tell her what was wrong with him, so she could have done everything in her power to save his life.

She never suspected he would have died so suddenly…without even a goodbye.

"I love you Vegeta…" she whispered to the night as she drifted into unconsciousness.

_A few days earlier_

_Vegeta's POV_

He had been feeling sick the past few months, and was starting to get worried as the sickness didn't go away. In fact, it only seemed to get worse as the weeks past.

It wasn't until a dream that he realized what was wrong with him. He dreamt of times back on Frieza's ship and how many of Frieza's scientists were dabbling with radioactive materials and ended up infecting many with radioactive poisoning. For a long time, the soldiers died off like rats. Each of them had cancerous tissue, each of them, that was the cause of their death. They found out later that the scientists were engineering an extremely dangerous and deadly sort of cancer that ate away from the carrier from the inside, tearing apart their internal organs, causing a very slow and painful death…that is **IF **the carrier had a strong immune system, such as the saiyans. Many of Frieza's men though, had very bad immune systems so they ended up dying off like flies. Everyone feared for their own life, none of them wanting to die…but alas many of them ended up dumped off into space and replaced the next day. Soon the epidemic passed and Vegeta had been able to relax…

…he would have never suspected that it would take over forty years for the dormant radioactive poison to flare up and start effecting his body…he figured it was mostly because he was growing older and his body was having a harder time fighting off the material.

He had known for months…but why didn't he tell anyone…why didn't he tell Bulma?

He knew that in the end he was going to die…so why prolong the process?

It wasn't because he didn't trust Bulma, for he did a lot, he just didn't want to cause her any emotional pain or any extra stress. She was already having problems with her joints and especially her hands, he was positive she had arthritis, and he felt it unnecessary to cause her any more pain…he knew when she found out she would be angry with him…but he figured it was for the best. Besides…he never was one for attention…so why start now?

He spent as much time as he could with Bulma, but covered his pain from her, very well apparently, for she never questioned him about anything. He knew he was reaching the end during the last holiday the earthlings had celebrated. His gut and head hurt like hell, whenever Kakarot smacked his back friendly-like, Vegeta would wince trying very hard to not cry out as the immense pain wracked his entire body. His head would ring for the next hour and any voice seemed as if someone was jamming an ice-pick deep into his skull. Needless to say, he was happy to return home, to where it was quiet.

The next week passed barely for Vegeta, each day the pain growing more and more unbearable. Whenever Bulma wasn't around he was constantly wheezing, having troubles catching his breath and he never seemed to be hungry anymore. He would lie to Bulma and tell her he already ate lunch about twenty minutes ago, and whenever she made him dinner he would choke it down, but most of the times, he ended up vomiting it up after forcing himself to eat.

One evening, he and Bulma started to argue, but it no longer held the same enjoyment he had once gotten from verbally sparring with his fiery mate. She had said that he was being really distant and whenever she wanted him to go somewhere with her, he turned her down. He said he never felt like going, to which she said he was only thinking of himself. He had called her an ungrateful bitch and told her to shut up for she was giving him a headache. She yelled even louder calling him a stupid, emotionally constipated, monkey who only wants to sit around on his ass all day and do nothing.

He wanted to tell her what was wrong…but he felt as if it were too late for him. He simply turned and walked away. He felt her fuming, thinking she had won the argument, but truth was, he couldn't hang on any longer.

He only hoped she could forgive him for leaving her so suddenly.

He made his way to the tree that Trunks had learned to walk under, the tree that Bulma had taken her first steps as well as his daughter. This tree held many first steps…but this would be the first last step it would witness.

He slumped to the ground, pain shooting up from his gut causing him to wheeze.

He would miss his family dearly.

He found it amazing how he had started off with practically no family or anyone who cared about him, how he had grown so…"emotionally constipated" as Bulma put it earlier…yet Bulma had still fallen in love with him and taught him how to love. Now he had a loving wife, a wonderful and smart son, and a beautiful daughter…not to mention the universe's best grandchildren.

He always suspected he would die lonely…it hurt knowing how many loved ones he was actually leaving behind.

He looked up at the sky, noticing the rain clouds starting to roll in and he closed his eyes and sighed deeply. He opened his eyes as the first raindrop landed on his nose, he smirked slightly taking another deep breath before exhaling once more. He chuckled slightly thinking about all those terrible movies Bulma made him sit through, the ones where one of the characters die and everything seemed to know about it…the weather especially. It was always raining in those movies, as if the world was crying for the loss of one person. If there was one thing he despised the most, it would be tears…he always hated it when someone he cared about cried, he always felt so helpless when they did.

The rain began to drizzle, raindrops landing on the saiyan's face. He took one more breath, wheezing as he did so. Exhaling deeply, he hoped that his family would forgive him for leaving them…but there wasn't anything he could do at this point but say goodbye.

"Don't cry for me…" Vegeta muttered as his final breath left his body and death welcomed him.

A/N: I wanted to write a one-shot to celebrate my first full year on …originally I was going to do a humorous fanfic…but this seemed to flow more naturally than the humorous one…I hope you didn't cry as much as I did…

Please leave a review about what you thought about my story…I hope they weren't horribly OOC…but hey a loved one just died and Vegeta explained why he acted the way he did.

~MellowDragon


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